A foam, which means a form in which a plurality of cells including gas therein or maintained in a vacuum state are formed, are formed using various materials throughout various industries.
The foam has cells formed therein through a reaction between a foam forming material and foaming gas. Since characteristics of the foam are significantly changed according to a size of the cell in the foam and the kind and amount of gas included in the cell therein, it is very important to collect gas in the foam and perform quantitative and qualitative analysis.
As a method of collecting gas samples in a foam according to the related art, a method of cutting a foam using a blade in a closed module, collecting gas in a cylinder and then analyzing the gas was suggested by Svantrom and Ramnas thirteen years ago.
In the above-mentioned method, a specific portion of the foam is cut and the gas in the cut cell is collected. However, even though a plurality of sample cut portions of the foam has the same shape, there is a difference in the amount of the collected gas due to irregularity of the cells in the foam. In addition, even though the number of cutting increases, it is impossible to completely destroy the foam due to the resilience of an organic foam. Therefore, it is difficult to completely collect gas included in the cell in the foam.
That is, even when a repetitive test is performed using the same foam sample, an error occurs in a result value of the gas collected by the above-mentioned method, thereby deteriorating the reliability of the test.
Meanwhile, in the case of a urethane foam that is being widely used as a heat insulator among foams, as time passes, thermal conductivity is increased to thereby deteriorate heat insulating performance, which is determined by foam gas and residual gas (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or the like) existing in gas included in the cell in the foam.
More specifically, in the case of the urethane foam, the gas including carbon dioxide in the cell in the foam is rapidly expanded in the early stage of formation thereof to thereby be leaked to the outside of the urethane foam. When the urethane foam is exposed in the air for a long time, gas such as nitrogen and oxygen in the air is diffused into the foam, thereby reducing the heat insulating performance in the foam.
Therefore, a process of collecting and analyzing the gas sample in the urethane foam is a main factor of determining performance of the urethane form. Particularly, in the case in which a heat insulator is used as a construction material, when the heat insulating performance is deteriorated with the passage of time, primarily, appropriate heat insulation is not performed to thereby cause energy to be wasted, and, secondarily, a high cost and a long period of time are required due to a difficulty in a replacement process of the heat insulator, that is, a process of destroying an inner wall and performing reconstruction in order to replace the heat insulator, or the like, to thereby cause energy to be additionally wasted.
Furthermore, the heat insulation is a most basic method for reducing energy consumption of a building. In accordance with the recent increase in interest in the environment and energy due to an increase in energy usage amount and rising in oil prices, a necessity for efficiently managing the energy throughout various industries, such as a construction industry, a refrigerator industry, an automobile industry, and the like, has increased.